MLB 12 Wiki Guide

Road to the Show Q&A

Patience. Even if you totally fulfill all your goals all the time, the game won’t promote if your skill ratings are low or if your competition is doing well. Teams won’t promote you if the guys ahead of you are on hot streaks, and if your position is “deep” as far as the organization cares, that means you’ve got much stiffer competition among your teammates. The only advice really is to keep playing, keep training, and fill your goals… and even then, teams won’t promote you at first because it’s in their best interest (based on the rules governing Major League Baseball contracts) to keep you in the minors for as long as possible.

Also, note that teams promote you based on your skills, and you gain skills by being in games, ergo you need as much playing time as possible. How do you do that? By being available in as many positions as possible. Marking yourself as a 2B first and a 1B second means that you’ll see some action, but not much early. However, marking yourself as 2B first and an OF second means you’ll see much more action as you’ll be subbed in when any outfielder needs a break. In short, the more positions you say you can play, the more playing time you’ll see, which means more training points and quicker skill gains. You can’t do this as a pitcher of course, but theoretically you’ll have a ton of playing time as a pitcher anyway since you can be called into any game, rather than having to wait as a backup.

Remember that you can change your secondary position any time by going into Edit Player, but not your primary position. That means you can make yourself a utility infielder or outfielder early in your career, and then when you get the call, just change your secondary position to something more manageable. Or don’t: being a utility player in the majors has its advantages of playing time too. Whichever you prefer is really your best choice.

Note that it’s faster to get promoted up this year than it’s ever been because you’re the AA starter this year when you begin your RTTS career, rather than the first backup on AA team.

The general strategy to build up your skills should start by you building up whatever your advancement goal is first. Pour all your points into the skills they want you to build on: typically, they are skills the game the deems most important for your position, so getting those up as soon as possible should help you anyway.

For example, if you’re an outfielder and they want you to improve your arm strength for a training period goal, you can pour spare points into arm strength even after meeting your goal; outfields need that arm strength, and the sooner you have it, the better.

After that, you should invest Training Points into what you think will help you the most based on your play style. Do you want to be known for stealing bases? Invest in speed and base running aggression. Do you want to be known as an accurate hitter? Invest in batting contact and plate vision. As a pitcher, invest in building your favorite pitch’s control and velocity ratings. Just remember to pay attention to your advancement goals, and spend points in those attributes first.

Note that it doesn’t make a difference of total gain whether you invest all 400 into one attribute at once or invest 40 ten times into the same attribute. There is no “quantity discount” or anything.

Why does it say my skills are “decreasing” in the training screen? What exactly does that mean?[edit]

If you don’t train a particular skill within 60 days, it starts to decrease slowly. This is basically just an incentive to balance your training in theory, though in practice you might not want to. Advancement goals tend to focus on one area of your game, and other skills will go down as a result.

This isn’t necessarily bad. For example, if you’re a pitcher, especially a closing pitcher, just ignore your batting skill even if it’s decreasing. You should be putting your points into pitching anyway, and your times at bat will be next to nothing even if you’re in the National League.

It’s a slightly harder decision if you’re a position player, but it plays more into what you want to do. If you want to be known as a base stealer, then your power skills can be neglected since you want accuracy and speed. The opposite can be true too: if you just want to be the best defenseman in history, you can stick with mediocre contact and speed in favor of high fielding numbers.

Note that all skills are “stabilized” during Spring Training, so all points you earn there can be invested in whatever you want to without risking anything dropping. You could use Spring Training points to bolster your weaker skills so you’re more balanced in the coming season, or you could use the points to increase your best skills and be a powerhouse. It’s really up to you how you want to build up, and neither way is particularly better.

I’m playing as a catcher in RTTS. Do I have to call the game, or is there a way to turn it off?[edit]

Yes, you still have to call the game, unless you turn off “Fielding Opportunities” in the Mode Options menu. Playing as a catcher in RTTS is one of the most time-intensive positions you can choose.

I’m playing as a pitcher in RTTS. What kind of pitches should I have?[edit]

It slightly depends on your role. Starting pitchers should have many pitches, and a wide variety of them. You should have at least one pitch that breaks left, and at least one more that breaks right. That way, you can trick any batter they face regardless of handedness. You should put points into all your pitches so you can pull out any pitch at any time with confidence.

Closing pitchers meanwhile should have one extremely dominant pitch. They tend not to have a huge variety (some only have three pitches total), but one pitch needs to be the go-to pitch for all situations. Most closers have an extremely dominant fastball with a curve and changeup as backups even though those aren’t as dominant; regardless, it’s better to have one dominant pitch, regardless what it is, than have everything even.

The only pitch you never want to throw is a breaking ball that breaks toward the batter that’s up and in, which is pretty much a guaranteed home run for anyone with any sort of power. For example, if you’re a right-handed pitcher, and you’re facing a lefty, sliders will break toward the batter. If you aim this pitch up and in, you may as well put your glove back in the dugout and be prepared to be yelled at for a loss. Never throw pitches up and in that break toward the batter.

Why did I get in trouble for not doing a hit-and-run when I ran on the swing?[edit]

There is, or was, a bug in the game carried over from the past two years that causes it not to properly detect hit-and-run attempts. If you are given the signal for doing a hit-and-run as the runner, and if the batter swings and misses, the game sometimes will say that you attempted to steal without being given permission. This is especially confounding if you successfully steal in that situation: you’ll get training points after the game for successfully stealing, but you’ll also get an e-mail from the manager declaring that you’re in trouble for stealing early. If this happens too often, the manager will bench you, and your career will suffer dramatically.

There’s nothing you can do to prevent the bug if it strikes you, as refusing to run at all will get you in trouble with the manager as well. You’ll simply have to hope for the best when you run. If you run and your teammate misses the ball, you can always immediately quit the game and (assuming you have autosave turned off) restart the game to try again.